1. Field of the Invention. This invention pertains to furniture, and more particularly to foldable tables.
2. Description of the Prior Art. Various types of furniture have been developed that conserve space in multipurpose rooms of schools, hospitals, nursing homes, and similar institutions. For example, stackable chairs and collapsible tables are well known.
A particularly beneficial type of foldable furniture is the suspended table disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 3,592,146. That table is suspended from the room ceiling, against which it is retracted when not in use. When the table is retracted, the entire floor in the room is available for productive use. In addition, the necessity of closets or other expensive but passive storage space is eliminated.
The suspended table of the U.S. Pat. No. 3,592,146 has enjoyed considerable commercial success. The table is available with manual or electrically powered extension and retraction systems. However, prior manually and electrically driven tables included housings and other components that were designed specifically for one or the other drive system. Consequently, manufacturing and inventory costs were undesirably high. Prior suspended tables were also occasionally handicapped by the lack of flexibility in the angular position of the table tops relative to the rooms in which they were used.
Thus, a need exists for a suspended table that is more versatile to manufacture and operate than was previously available.